NGO providing relief to Nigeria’s Persecuted Christians
Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims in Nigeria is providing support to attack victims and their children. (Photo by Ekpali Saint)
JOS, Nigeria — It was 10 a.m. on May 16 of this year. Eunice Simon was home with her four children when she heard people shouting.
Confused, Simon came out and saw dozens of Fulani herders afar who had invaded Jwak, her village in north-central Nigeria.
“They were more than 100 and they were with big weapons,” saud Simon, 35, who was pregnant at the time.
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Immediately, Simon instructed her children to come out of the house while she moved around a few houses to call out other children and old women. She then gathered and asked them to start running toward the neighboring Kirana village.
The raid is part of a years-long land war in an effort to occupy it with herds of cattle. The raiders, however, do not represent the larger Fulani tribe that counts as many as 10 million members in Nigeria. Instead, they are a militant faction driven either by Islamist fanaticism or material greed.
Simon is not alone. Thousands of internally displaced people are now living in camps that are not habitable. But the Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims in Nigeria, a local nongovernmental organization, is providing support to victims of attacks in the country.
In Simon’s case, she could not run any faster. At the same time, her husband had joined other men to work a tin mining site in the village that morning. But she kept moving slowly.
After some minutes, a stray bullet passed through Simon’s right breast, leaving a scar. As she kept going, a Fulani herder who had sighted her from a distance as she was running ordered her to stop.
“I did not stop so he shot me in my (left) knee, and I fell on the ground,” Simon recalled.
Simon then spotted some men and called for help. They came and quickly got someone with a motorcycle to take her to a hospital in the Mangu district, about a 30-minute car ride from where they were.
When they arrived at the hospital, the medical personnel quickly dressed her wound to stop the bleeding. A few minutes into her treatment, Simon went into labor and delivered a baby boy she later named Bamkinan “because I survived only by the grace of God,” she said.
Eunice Simon. (Photo by Ekpali Saint)
In recent years, Plateau State has seen a sharp rise in crisis. The farmers, who are predominantly Christians, have alleged that nomadic Fulani herdsmen, mostly Muslim, often invade their farming settlements, burn their homes and destroy crops. These attacks have resulted in loss of lives and thousands have been displaced in a state that has battled with ethnic and religious violence for decades.
Since 2005, Plateau state has recorded over 2,000 deaths, according to a 2021 report of the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). In May this year, over 100 people were killed in farming villages in Mangu district, leaving many people displaced.
The most recent attack was on June 11, where 21 people were killed, many injured and over 40 houses destroyed after Fulani herders invaded communities in Riyom and Barkin Ladi. This attack is coming barely a month after Simon’s village was attacked.
Observers said these attacks are targeted at native Christian communities.
“There is an agenda for ethnic cleansing of the Christians and reducing the numerical strength of the Christians. We have not seen or heard Fulanis going to attack any Hausa or Fulani community. It is always native Christian community,” said Solomon Dalyop, CEO of the Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims in Nigeria, a nonprofit supporting victims of attacks in the country.
He added that the quest to forcibly occupy lands of native Christian communities has fuelled the attacks. Last year, Dalyop said he worked with some local groups to document the 102 villages that are currently occupied by Fulani herdsmen across four local government areas of Riyom, Barkin Ladi, Bassa and Bokus. The number is even higher now given that over 50 villages have been attacked since May.
“So the issue of land grabbing is a fact that I want to believe no one can refute,” Dalyop said.
Joseph Gwankat, president of Mwaghavul Development Association in Plateau State, agreed.
“This crisis is [about] herdsmen who want to take possession of land,” he added. “Our people are displaced … and it’s difficult this farming season because if you don’t farm, there’s no food.”
These camps are not habitable. Besides not having enough food, these displaced persons are exposed to cold as they sleep on bare floors or sometimes mat in classrooms-turned-camps.
“The situation has been terribly bad and the sanitary condition is poor. It can be very cold here and these people sleep on mats; some of these women only put their wrappers on the floor, and sleep with their children,” said Enoch Markus, who serves as a camp director.
For survival, these displaced persons depend on NGOs since their means of livelihood has been destroyed and their communities occupied by their attackers.
ECCVN to the rescue
After a community has been attacked, a team from ECCVN is sent to conduct an assessment, primarily to find out the number of those affected to enable its plan for relief intervention. Its most recent intervention was to three locations on July 22. When the ECCVN team arrived at the first IDP camp at Pilot Science nursery/primary school in Mangu with a truckload of relief materials, the displaced persons came out to welcome them.
After addressing the people, Dalyop, who led the ECCVN team, presented the donations — including clothes, 30 bags of guinea corn and 11 bags of rice — to the camp, which hosts 2,091 displaced persons. Although Simon is currently squatting in a family member’s house, ECCVN invited her to the camp and gave her $162.
The ECCVN then proceeded to another IDP camp at Nding-Fan in Barkin Ladi and donated 26 bags of guinea corn, 10 bags of rice and $117 to the over 800 survivors of attacks at the camp. The non-profit also donated $650 for the treatment of those injured during attacks. They also donated $520 to Heipang community in support for the treatment.
Solomon Dalyop, CEO of the Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims. (Photo by Ekpali Saint)
“We currently owe about $13, 075 for treatment. Some have been treated but they cannot leave the hospital because they have no money to pay,” Markus said, adding, “We appreciate ECCVN. The donations will go a long way because these people [including children] sometimes go one to two days without food.”
ECCVN’s intervention also extends to survivors of violent attacks in Bauchi, Benue, Taraba and Zamfara states. Besides relief materials, ECCVN has provided free legal services to these survivors and gives out annual scholarships to children displaced by attacks. Last December alone, it offered scholarships to 30 children.
Dalyop said these interventions are largely possible due to the support from U.S.-based Christian Solidarity International.
Is the military complicit?
Dalyop said he always receives information of a planned attack and specific locations from secret intelligence. When Dalyop receives the information, he said, he shares it immediately with the government, security agencies and even on social media platforms.
“This information is always accurate, but the military doesn’t take action,” he said.
For example, two days before an attack in Jol village on October 2, 2018, Dalyop sent text messages to the military, informing them of a planned attack by Fulani herdsmen. As a reminder, he contacted the military again on the day of the attack. As usual, Dalyop said nothing was done to prevent it, which resulted in the death of 14 people.
Angered by the situation, Dalyop wrote a petition — which went viral at the time — and as a result received threats.
“I find it very difficult to appreciate this kind of modus operandi of the military when it comes to rapid response to distress calls in the face of full scale terrorism,” he said. “I have seen what is called conspiracy, compromise, and neglect on the part of the security agencies saddled with the responsibility of guaranteeing the safety of individuals and communities.”
Meanwhile, residents have staged protests at different times demanding the withdrawal of the military due to their failure to act when they receive advance notice of an attack.
On April 26, some residents of Farin Lamba staged a protest following an attack at a mining site in the area which resulted in the death of unarmed citizens the previous day. The protesters accused the Nigerian Army of complicity primarily because of their failure to act despite advance warnings and text messages passed on to them.
In turn, the military blamed their lack of prompt action on logistical problems. But many said they have their doubts. In April 2020, after a village massacre in Nigeria’s Kaduna State, survivors found one of the attackers’ cellphones and discovered that among the 26 numbers saved to the phone were those of Nigeria’s army and police officers.
‘I detest injustice’
Growing up in Plateau state, Dalyop said it bothers him each time innocent people are subjected to violence.
Even as a young boy, Dalyop said he always condemned the attacks and helped survivors find help. When he completed law school, Dalyop said he even took up several legal cases for free for those who have suffered injustice and attacks.
But he needed a platform that would enable him to help more victims of attacks. So he started ECCVN in February 2018.
“I detest every form of injustice. Where there is injustice, I find it very difficult to accommodate such situations,” he said. “Whether I will be beaten or criticized, I must speak up [and] tell the stories of those who cannot tell their stories.”
However, ECCVN faces challenges, chief of which are threats from both the Fulani armed herders and security officials “that are not pleased with what we are doing,” Dalyop noted.
He also said the lack of adequate funding limits the organization’s expansion drive, especially as they have planned to provide skill acquisition centers for displaced persons in the camps.
Despite this, ECCVN’s team of nine has continued to work to provide succor to victims of attack.
“We are seeing pure ethnic cleansing [but] we are still pushing, we will not relent,” Dalyop vowed. “We want the government to take action so individuals can resettle back.”
Meanwhile, Simon is recovering. She hopes to start a business soon since she can’t return to her village to continue her farming business.
“My joy is that I survived the attack,” Simon said. “Here, I plan to start a business to support my family.”
Ekpali Saint is a freelance journalist based in Nigeria.